Perhaps
it was always on Mcgregor’s mind or maybe Conan O’Brien implanted
the idea in his head during that very moment on live TV when he asked
about the fight. Regardless of how it happened, somewhere in the last
few years “The Notorious” has realised what he could take from
Mayweather is the mantle of being the biggest pay-per-view (PPV) star
the world has ever seen.

This
week, as the two are set to share a stage for the first time,
McGregor will prove he has already beaten Mayweather in this regard
too. What perhaps Mayweather may have missed, is that by giving
McGregor this fight, he has already made the UFC Champion as big a
star as he is and that is what Connor always wanted. The proof will
be in the numbers but time is on McGregor’s side.

Right
now, Floyd “Money” Mayweather is unquestionably still the bigger
attraction in the centuries old show business that is prize-fighting.
However, Mayweather is 40 years old and is coming out of retirement
for the third time. The mantle of world’s biggest PPV star was
always going to pass on. Yet no one – least of all Mayweather –
thought it would go to anyone, at least this soon anyway, that could
beat all his own records; biggest TV audience for a pay-per-view
fight, biggest gate receipt in combat sports history, highest
grossing event, etc, etc.

Mayweather
– after what is certain to be his last fight against McGregor –
will be leaving behind an unprecedented platform of PPV potential.
Mayweather boxing shows have become something of a cross between the
Super Bowl and The Oscars. Everyone wants to tune in to them. People
talk about the fights for months and every part of the build up
becomes viral viewing.

McGregor
has been creating a similar hype around his fights but was yet to
reach “Money” status. In the process of using McGregor for his
easiest and biggest payday ever, Mayweather has inadvertently given
him a hand up to get on this level.

Getting
the opportunity to face the greatest challenge in modern boxing,
without even ever having any boxing experience, has made McGregor a
living sporting miracle, perceived as being capable of anything.
Being involved in this contest has cemented Connor McGregor as one of
the biggest sports stars in history. He does not play the same role
that the likes of Marcos Maidana or Andre Berto did against
Mayweather. McGregor does not face Mayweather as a mere boxing
opponent, he faces him as a competing brand, looking to swallow all
the commercial appeal at stake and take it forward with him into the
next part of his career. Millions of casual sports fans that watched
Mayweather for his status as a legitimate all-time-great performing
in this era will from August 26 onwards be watching McGregor.
Whatever he does from there will have the attention of the entire
sporting world, its celebrity bandwagon and their army of adoring
followers.

This
is a win for McGregor, for MMA and for the UFC. For Mayweather, it
will be a hard pill to swallow, as one of his most satisfying
accomplishments has always been becoming the biggest PPV star in the
world. Lucky for Mayweather, he will have another $100m+ in the bank
and a nicely rounded 50-0 record to ease the sting.

This
shift of star-power is what McGregor has been aiming for all along.
That is why McGregor acted like he had cleared out a division and
flat out refused to defend his title after becoming the UFC
Lightweight Champion last year. In near calculated fashion, McGregor
put the UFC in a position of being unable to bargain with him. As the
reigning UFC Featherweight and Lightweight Champion – the first
person to ever hold two UFC titles simultaneously, McGregor had the
MMA credentials on paper he now needed to be able to validate his
choice as a Mayweather opponent.

The
truth is, McGregor has never proven himself the outright best in the
MMA world, not pound-for-pound like Mayweather has in boxing. He has
proven exciting, spectacular, a masterful MMA striker and lots more.
But he has never reigned like Jon Jones, Anderson Silva or any of
MMA’s other most celebrated elite level champions. McGregor has
never even defended any of the titles he has won with the UFC.

McGregor
had a lot of hugely interesting and difficult options to defend
either UFC title against. Having only won one of his last three
fights in clear fashion (considering in between a win and a loss he
had the ultra close rematch vs Nate Diaz which many felt he lost), no
MMA fan would say McGregor had surpassed any possible challenges in
the UFC and had only a foray into boxing left as a test. Certainly,
the likes of Max Holloway, Frankie Edgar, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Tony
Ferguson and of course Nate Diaz would all attest to that.

Nevertheless,
as emphasised by the question from Conan O’Brien before
McGregor had even won the interim UFC Featherweight title, the
Irishman has the kind of status that made him a viable fight for
anyone (within sizeable reason, although don’t be surprised to see
McGregor call out Anthony Joshua soon). People just want to see
McGregor perform, both in the press conferences (where he is
undefeatable) and in the cage (where is unarguably one of the best in
the world). So knowing he would have public backing for the fight,
McGregor pursued the Mayweather fight.

If
McGregor were truly interested in actually beating Mayweather in a
boxing match, he would not be jumping in to the fight after only a
few months of boxing training. He would have considered at least a
warm up fight, to come to terms with the differences between the
sports. There is video footage of him looking like the boxing novice
that he is, sparring against former boxing world champion Chris Van
Heerden sometime last year. McGregor simply cannot have improved
enough in the last year to be able to give himself a real chance to
beat Mayweather in a boxing match. Although it is fair to say he
would need a lifetime to be able to get to a level to be able to beat
Mayweather, to put it into perspective, McGregor will have been
training solely on boxing for at most six months, without even a
warm-up bout.

The
lack of adequate preparation needed to win a fight against someone of
Mayweather’s standing (without even getting into the nuances of
Mayweather’s specific style which need to be considered) does not
mean McGregor will not try to win and give it his all. It is just a
clear indication McGregor, who has proclaimed himself to have a “PHD
in human movement”, is not solely focused on winning the fight.

So
how does McGregor win the battle he is really focused on and become
the bigger PPV star? Through his most undefeatable asset, his press
conference persona.

McGregor
will be telling the world that MMA is the truer fight sport and
boxing has more rules in order to keep people safe from killers like
him. He will mock Floyd’s style, he will criticise the sport of
boxing for championing a style which is often regarded as boring. He
will leave Floyd Mayweather reeling with his verbal assault at the
press conferences.

Then,
when the fight happens and bar a true sporting miracle Mayweather
dismantles McGregor, the Irishman will berate boxing for his lack of
success, blaming its rules which allows success for fighters being
defensive.

With
McGregor looking so ferocious and confident in press conferences, and
then so ponderous and lost in the ring against Mayweather, fans will
pine to see “The Notorious” back in his element, in an MMA cage.

The
UFC will be banking on this too and are already dropping hints about
a massive fight for McGregor in Russia against the undefeated Khabib
Nurmagomedov for his comeback. Everyone who heard McGregor talk about
the more dangerous and less restricted fight sport of MMA during his
build up to fight Mayweather will be guaranteed to tune in to see how
he does in his MMA comeback.

That
is when the PPV numbers will come in and that is when we will see
that McGregor had Mayweather beaten at this game from the moment the
two agreed to fight.